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Friday, November 18, 2016

CAN GAY BE 'NORMALIZED'?

As the world
grapples with the reality of President-elect Donald Trump, the poignant
messages within Jordan Seavey’s Homos,
Or Everyone in America have only become timelier. Broaching the
normalization of gay narratives as a topic for discussion, the plot cleverly
deploys familiar tropes from the heteronormative romantic comedy genre. The
play, presented in a non-linear fashion, focuses on a gay couple who have frank
conversations about what it means to be men who love men.

“When does a
story become a gay story and not just a story? And when does a story become
just a story and not a gay story?” posits Michael Urie, who plays The Writer.
“We don't call them straight stories,” he adds. It is with this distinction
that Seavey’s work and characters keenly interrogate their surroundings,
especially when the drama deals with heavy subjects like infidelity and the
aftermath of a hate crime.

These weighted
explorations call into question the necessity of tragedy or tragic elements in
queer-themed literature. Homos references iconic works from
the gay cannon that utilize tragedy, namely Mart Crowley’s The Boys in
the Band and Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. “What's
funny is that Jordan [Seavey], our playwright, says that he considers this a
comedy,” says Robin De Jesús who plays The Academic. “It's heavy, but it
doesn't necessarily end in tragedy.”

But does a “gay
work” marginalize and diminish importance? Urie and De Jesús are quick to point
out why this play is wholly important and relevant.

“I feel like
right now, today, in the current climate we are in, we need to be telling
stories about people connecting, taking care of one another, overcoming
adversity, and forgiveness,” says Urie. “There is a lot of forgiveness in this
play, and, even though this play takes place long before the rise of Donald
Trump, we're going to need a lot of that coming up.”

“Every
situation, I've been in it or I've seen someone I know go through it. It's all
so incredibly relatable,” adds De Jesús. “I think what's really cool and
interesting for me is being the other part of this romantic couple. I am an
average, good-looking gay man. I'm not a 2Xist model. It's kind of nice when
you get to play a leading man who is a normal leading man. And, I am not saying
that to demean myself at all.”

Throughout the
one-act, Homos presents full-bodied and realistic characters
who speak to each other in authentic, yet lyrical, ways. The conversations and
scenarios effortlessly transcend gay labels in favor of the universally human.

Homos, Or
Everyone in America runs at Labryinth Theater Company (155 Bank
Street, New York) through December 11.

1 comment:

To answer the question in your title here, my bare blogging brother, in an ideal world, yes, gay can be normalized. However, we, unfortunately, live in a less-than-perfect world (how else to rationalize the recent USA election results?). Naked hugs!